GASTON COLLEGE RECORD BOOK: Basketball's first leading scorer - Charles "Cookie" Stewart
(Part 1 of a 10-part series)
When Gaston College first started playing basketball in the 1964-65 season, it had no conference, limited scheduling options and no home court.
By its second season, it had a homecourt in Gastonia's old Groves Gymnasium, a new coach in Jim Garrison and loads of local talent that included who would become the school's first top scorer.
Charles "Cookie" Stewart was a 1961 graduate of Gastonia's old Ashley High School who played for the school - then nicknamed "Rebels' - when it began it first full season of games in the 1965-66 season.
And Stewart immediately made an impact as scored 11 points in the season opener in a 102-77 home loss to Warren Wilson College of Swannanoa.
Stewart kept on scoring the rest of the season, reaching double figures in all 13 games the school played, highlighted by the school's first 30-point game late in a season that would end with a 5-8 record.
That's when Stewart knocked in 34 points in a 73-63 loss at Mitchell Community College of Statesville on Feb. 16, 1966.
He finished the year with 260 points for a 20.0 point scoring average. It marked the first scoring average of 20 or more points in school history - and only six other times has a player averaged 20 or more points in a season for Gaston College.
On a roster that included Cramerton's Tony Parker, Dallas' Calvin Beam, Gastonia's Walter Cox, John Hunter and Tony Taylor, Stanley's Larry Armstrong and Tryon's Jerry Mace, Stewart was the team's leading scorer seven times in its 13 games.
In Gaston College's historic first victory - a 54-52 win at Carolina Military of Maxton on Dec. 9, 1965 - Stewart had 12 points and Beam had 15.
Another late-season game featured a brush with future professional greatness as Stewart scored 10 points, Mace had 22 and Armstrong 14 in a 95-53 loss against the Western Carolina freshmen in Cullowhee that preceded a high-scoring varsity game with two eventual pros; Western Carolina downed Guilford 99-82 as future ABA champion Henry Logan scored 45 points for the winners and future NBA All-Star Bob Kauffman had 22 for the losers.
After graduating from Gaston College, Stewart went on to play baseball at Belmont Abbey before later working as a supervisor at McAdenville's Pharr Yarns while also continuing his athletic exploits as a championship-winning softball player.
Stewart was a left fielder for Pharr Yarns Reds coaches Red Jenkins and Doug McDonald and helped the team win Industrial World Series titles while playing alongside local softball legends like J.D. McDonald, Ken Mitchem and Duck Ballard and former Gaston College athletes like Mike Hoover and Clarence "Buck" Buchanan.
A lifelong sports enthusiast, Stewart eventually played senior softball, was active in local golf tournaments and did work at radio stations in Belmont, Dallas and Gastonia as a disc jockey and sports announcer. In 1979, he was a play-by-play announcer during South Point High's unbeaten N.C. 3A state championship season.
Eventually spending the last years of his life in Alexis, Stewart also was an assistant football and baseball coach at Stanley Junior High and later became head football and baseball coach at Mount Holly Middle School.
When he died on May 20, 2004, he had just received his teaching certification from Belmont Abbey College - or the same school where completed his four-year degree in 2002.